This year the New York State Pearson exams also featured crass, commercial product placements as well as reading passages lifted off of Pearson textbooks that had been purchased and assigned elsewhere in the state but not NYC. According to Kathleen Porter Magee of the conservative Fordham Institute, Pearson is abusing its monopoly power in way that "threatens the validity of the English Language Arts (ELA)
scores for thousands of New York students and raises serious questions
about the overlap between Pearson's curriculum and assessment divisions."

Below is an exchange between Cynthia Wachtell, a NYC parent, who sent a letter to the Board of Regents, suggesting that the portions of the exams that drew reading passages from Pearson texts be invalidated. The State Education official who responded, Steven Katz, claims that this borrowing was coincidental, and only happened because "authentic, meaningful texts" were used, as though there aren't any "meaningful" pieces of literature that are not contained in Pearson textbooks. As Cynthia replies, there is a "vast body of fictional and non-fictional works from which the
test passages could be selected."Katz' claim, that this unfair practice resulted from the "authentic" nature of the texts, echoes the excuse made by Pearson earlier in the year, when questions were raised about the inclusion of brand name products and logos in the ELA exams. Their PR department then wrote, in the company's defense that "...several assessment programs use only authentic passages and the inclusion of brand names is inevitable." The arguments of both the SED and Pearson seems markedly unconvincing, and yes, inauthentic to me.

Even more Pearson errors are described by Alan Singer at Huffington Post, along with the response of the head PR honcho at Pearson, Susan Aspey, former press
secretary at the US Department of
Education,which according to Singer, "epitomizes the disturbing relationship between
private companies that are selling products and government agencies."

Indeed, the fact that the excuses offered by New York State Ed officials for Pearson incompetence and/or venality are indistinguishable from those made by Pearson PR flacks reveals how both are inextricably linked in an overarching
testing-educational complex, like the military-industrial complex that
Eisenhower warned us about decades before. Their email exchange follows:_______

Dear Board of
Regents Members,

I have two sons in public school in Manhattan,
grades 6 and 8. Recently, they both took the ELA exams for their
respective grades. Subsequently, I discovered that both of their tests
seem to have included passages that students in other school districts,
which had purchased Pearson prep materials, had already seen. The
following are from online sources:

This is an appalling error, and it will be a huge
ethical lapse, if it is not promptly addressed. Of course, it is
hard to assess the extent of this problem precisely because Pearson refuses to
make the tests public. What is obvious, though, is
that Pearson has failed again.

As the eight grade teacher further
writes, "[I]t was a huge advantage to students fortunate enough to use a
Pearson text and not that of a rival publisher." Clearly,
all questions based upon these passages must now be disqualified.

Thank you for sharing with
the New York State Education Department and its Board of Regents your concern
that some students taking the Grades 3-8 English Language Arts Tests may have
previously read passages in widely used textbooks.

These Common Core English
language arts tests use authentic texts for the reading passages. The move to
using authentic texts allows for the inclusion of works of literature that are
worthy of reading outside of an assessment context. By definition, authentic
texts have been published elsewhere. It is not surprising that a passage on the
assessments may have appeared in a textbook or an anthology, or may have been
encountered by students when reading books, magazines, or newspapers. It is
possible it may happen again as we go forward with the use of authentic texts
in state assessments.

Using authentic,
meaningful texts means that some students have read texts included on the 2013
Common Core English Language Arts Tests prior to test administration. For
the very reasons that texts were selected for use on the assessment, it is
possible that teachers have selected the same texts for use in their
classrooms. In addition, well-read students may have read the books that
passages were drawn from for their personal reading. Be assured, however, that
students who may have previously read either the source a passage was drawn
from or a textbook or anthology it was included in have not had access to the
test questions associated with the passage.

Once again, thank you for
your comments on the 2013 English Language Arts Tests.

Sincerely,

Steven E. Katz

Director of State Assessment

____Dear Mr. Katz,

I appreciate your thoughtful response to my message.
However, I must disagree with the conclusions that you draw.

The students who read the Pearson passages in advance of
the test did so in a test prep situation in the months, weeks, and even days
leading up to the ELA test. They discussed the passages in class.
They answered questions about the passages, even if they were not the
same questions that appeared on the actual test. If they did not understand
the passages or words in them, they had the advantage of their teachers and
classmates' input. This is quite different from the experience of a
student casually reading a passage, in the course of independent reading, at
what might be many months, or even years, remove from the ELA test.

Moreover, the likelihood of a student randomly
encountering in advance a passage that appears on a test is quite slim.
There is a vast body of fictional and non-fictional works from which the
test passages could be selected. However, the fact that a 6th or 8th
grade student who used the Pearson test prep materials definitely encountered a
test passage in advance of the Pearson created test is a certainty.

For the integrity of the testing process -- especially now
that there are such "high stakes" depending upon it -- I remain
convinced that these two passages need to be disqualified. Moreover, I
believe that Pearson's repeated errors warrant a cancelation of the company's
contract.